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Friday, November 2, 2007

I can't stand those bastards at the White House. As Documented by media matters.org.
And as usual the Media outlets uncritically reported White House claim that it does not "employ" fake reporting

I guess he (Bush) needs to use fake reporting on FEMA, Iraq, and everything else his administration is doing in government because his White House and his administration are full of lies. Forget about FEMA for a minute (we will come back to that later) Take for another American disgrace under the Bush Administration, lets say:

TORTURE

Check out what the worst president in history had to say:

We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture." - President Bush (Nov. 7, 2005).

THE FACTS

Source: Bush Lies. net - The State Department's annual report on human rights practices worldwide has condemned countries such as Burma and North Korea for the disappearance and indefinite detention of political prisoners without trial; while also condemning Libya, Syria and other countries for engaging in acts of torture that include hooding, stripping detainees naked, sleep deprivation, subjecting detainees to extremes of heat, cold, noise and light, threatening them with dogs, submerging them in water to simulate drowning — which is known as water-boarding — and other acts of physical abuse all of which have occured at U.S. detention facilities. See State Dept. Study Cites Torture of Prisoners: Rumself Approved Similar Practices (Washington Post March 10, 2005).

Rumsfeld Approved Similar Practices

In addition, post-World War II Japanese war crimes tribunals found that both the Japanese soldiers engaging in water-boarding and the officers who approved it were guilty of war crimes.

Don't believe what you see and read.

Reports on CNN and in the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times uncritically quoted White House spokeswoman Dana Perino's response to a question about an October 23 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) press conference, in which, as Washington Post columnist Al Kamen reported, "the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters." Perino said of the conference, "It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House and we certainly don't condone it." But as Media Matters for America has documented, the Bush administration has a history of generating "fake" news.

Several media reports uncritically included Perino's response to the press conference without noting past Bush administration scandals involving "fake" reporting:

  • An October 26 Associated Press article led by uncritically noting that "[t]he White House scolded" FEMA, adding that Perino "said it was not appropriate that the questions were posed by agency staffers instead of reporters."
  • An October 27 New York Times article stated that the conference "drew a rebuke from the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff," adding that Perino said: "It's not something I would have condoned ... And they -- I'm sure -- will not do it again."
  • An October 27 Los Angeles Times article stated that "[t]he White House was not happy with FEMA's response," adding Perino's quote: "It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House."
  • An October 27 Washington Post article uncritically included Perino's quote: "White House press secretary Dana Perino said yesterday that 'it is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House. We certainly don't condone it. We didn't know about it beforehand. . . . They, I'm sure, will not do it again.' "
  • In an October 29 Washington Post online discussion, staff writer and media critic Howard Kurtz wrote: "I don't think it's fair to blame the White House for this. Dana Perino made it quite clear that the White House did not approve of this make-believe event." Kurtz later noted Bush administration journalism scandals involving conservative columnist Armstrong Williams and "a couple of other commentators," but did not contrast these scandals with Perino's reported disapproval of the FEMA press conference.
  • On the October 29 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, correspondent Jeanne Meserve reported that "[t]he White House distanced itself" from the FEMA conference and then aired Perino's quote.

As Media Matters noted, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Bush administration's use of video news releases (VNRs) -- video reports that appeared to be created by journalists instead of the government and, as The New York Times reported, many of which "were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production" -- was in violation of federal law. A May 12, 2005, statement by GAO Managing Associate General Counsel Susan A. Poling noted:

In the past year, GAO has issued two legal opinions on the production of video news releases (VNRs) that included prepackaged news stories by both the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). In both of these instances, we concluded that the agencies violated the federal government-wide prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for purposes of publicity or propaganda not authorized by Congress.

Media Matters has documented numerous instances in which former White House press secretary Scott McClellan turned to former Talon News "Washington Bureau Chief" Jeff Gannon -- whose real name, James Guckert, was uncovered by bloggers in February 2005 -- for softball questions, particularly during heated press conferences. In early 2005, after Media Matters and others raised questions about his work, Gannon resigned from Talon News. One week later, the Talon News website -- operated by Republican activist Bobby Eberle -- was shut down and all articles deleted. Media Matters has documented several instances in which Gannon lifted text directly from Republican materials and sources.

The Bush administration has also paid journalists for support on specific issues:

  • As Media Matters noted, the Los Angeles Times reported on November 30, 2005, that "the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq." The Times added that a multinational military task force had "purchased an Iraqi newspaper and taken control of a radio station, and was using them to channel pro-American messages to the Iraqi public."
  • Armstrong Williams' column was dropped by his syndicator, Tribune Media Services, following USA Today's report that the Bush administration paid him $240,000 to promote its No Child Left Behind education policy, as Media Matters noted.
  • As Media Matters noted, on January 26, 2005, Kurtz reported: "In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families. ... But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal."
  • On September 8, 2006, The Miami Herald reported that "[a]t least 10 South Florida journalists, including three from El Nuevo Herald, received regular payments from the U.S. government for programs on Radio Martí and TV Martí, two broadcasters aimed at undermining the communist government of Fidel Castro. The payments totaled thousands of dollars over several years. ... Pablo Alfonso, who reports on Cuba and writes an opinion column, was paid almost $175,000 since 2001 ... and staff reporter Wilfredo Cancio Isla, who covers the Cuban exile community and politics, was paid almost $15,000 in the last five years."
AAPP: media matters.org is for real. Check them out. They undercover the real deal on what is going on in Washington and beyond.

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